Oversize monochrome printers from HP, Lexmark, and Xerox prove practical yet pricey

The LaserJet 9050dn’s control panel LCD sits almost horizontal along the printer’s top edge. On an InfoWorld test bench, it stood too high for me to read; unless your colleagues are basketball players, you may need to deploy the printer on low furniture.

Free IT resource Virtualization Insights from Top Experts - Learn how virtualization gets real! Sponsored by Dell Free IT resource Try Sun servers, workstations and storage products free for 60-days. Sponsored by Sun Microsystems

The panel provides some useful management features. For example, the Service Test command checks the machine’s motors, solenoids, and sensors to cut down on service-call false alarms. It also has a reset command, a drastic way of clearing out any bad jobs that are choking the printer. And a numeric keypad simplifies entering an IP address or setting up daily sleep and wake times.

The control panel has no on-board security controls; for that, you go to your PC and log on to the printer’s internal Web site, which you’ll appreciate if you don’t already manage a printer fleet with HP’s free Web Jetadmin (and don’t want to start). The Web site can display or e-mail basic status info such as whether someone has left a tray or flap open, report how busy the printer has been, and set up access by user passwords and IP subnets.

Although no one can call the LaserJet 9050dn slow, in my tests it fell somewhat behind the Lexmark and Xerox competitors, particularly on single prints. Curiously, the performance gap narrowed when running 10 copies of each job. The 9050dn printed one copy of my 10-page plain text document at 22.8 ppm, but doubled performance to 44.9 ppm when printing 10 copies; on my Excel table and chart, it started with one copy at a poky 10.6 ppm but soared to 32 ppm on 10 copies. The Lexmark and Xerox also print multiple copies much faster than singles, but the disparities are less extreme.

While the LaserJet 9050dn slips a bit on speed, it makes up the difference on print quality, producing about the blackest, most matte, and cleanest text, numbers, and fine lines of any mono laser printer I’m familiar with. Graphics is not usually a mono printer’s forte, but this one acquits itself well on grayscale graphics and even photos, with smooth shading and good detail and realism.

The LaserJet 9050dn costs more than the Xerox or Lexmark, at $3,799 in the configuration I tested. But based on HP’s estimated yield, a page of ordinary text should cost only about 1 cent, and 250,000 prints (about five years worth of supplies) should add up to about $2,160 -- a cost that encourages printing all the copies you need of a document, instead of making one print and walking down the hall to a copier.

Lexmark W840dn

The W in Lexmark’s W840dn stands for wide, of course, because it prints on oversize paper, but the machine itself is more compact than the HP. It weighs only 100 pounds; it is 24 inches wide by 21 inches deep and 19 inches tall. The printer and duplexer come in separate boxes inside a cardboard shell; popping the duplexer into place is a snap. I do wish that the printer had more handholds: Two good grips on the same side provide awkward leverage for lifting the machine.